Unequal Pay, Unconscious Bias, And What To Do About It

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I cover the intersection of business, psychology and gender.

Today is equal pay day, yet the U.S. is still far away from equal pay for men and women (Photo: Shutterstock).

Today is Equal Pay Day, the day we’re supposed to think about why women are still earning about 80 cents for every dollar earned by their male counterparts at work. That’s part of the problem. There’s been a lot of thinking, but not much action. As a result, there hasn't been much progress in eliminating the pay gap over the last few decades.

One reason we may lack motivation to close the gap is confusion surrounding the roots of the problem. Often people think that the pay gap can be entirely explained by women’s opting out of the workforce or choosing more flexible schedules to accommodate their families. Others say the pay gap stems from men and women choosing different career paths, with men electing more lucrative professions. While family obligations and career choice do account for some of the gender pay gap, they certainly don’t account for the whole 20 cents. In order for women to achieve full parity with men at work, we must eliminate the unconscious bias that still plays a significant role in the gender differences in pay.

What Is Unconscious Bias?

Most people don’t head to work consciously thinking they want to promote men over women or that they want to pay men more than their female counterparts, yet unconsciously they still have a bias in favor of men. This bias stems from gender stereotypes that we tend to hold about typical characteristics of men and women. In general, we think that men make better leaders and managers whereas women are more nurturing and make better caretakers. The activation of these stereotypes happens so quickly that we’re not typically aware of it - thus, the unconscious part. We become aware of these stereotypes at a young age, and, as adults, both men and women are likely to apply them (you can determine your own tendency to unconsciously apply stereotypes on this Harvard University website).

How Does Unconscious Bias Impact The Gender Pay Gap?

Unconscious bias and stereotyping come into play at work when managers are determining which employees to hire and how employees should be compensated. Everything else being equal between a male and female employee, unconscious bias often results in higher pay for the male employee. In one often-repeated methodology for studying gender differences in pay, participants are given a resume to review. Half of the participants have a resume with a woman’s name and half have one with a man’s name at the top. Otherwise the resumes are identical. Participants are then asked how much they believe the owner of the resume should be paid. Even though the resumes are identical, participants consistently suggest higher salaries for the male candidate.

There are plenty of real-world examples of how this bias plays out. For example, a study of over a million actual transactions on eBay revealed female sellers received about 20% less than male sellers who were selling the exact same brand new items. In other words, people were willing to pay men more for the exact same items. The researchers controlled for everything that might impact the sales price (the reputation of the seller, the number and quality of photos, whether a reserve price had been set and the text describing the product), and the difference between the prices paid to male and female sellers of identical new products was still 19%. Even for $100 gift cards, participants were willing to pay 6.9% more to male sellers than female sellers. The only explanation of why people would be willing to pay male sellers more for these products is unconscious bias. It’s the same type of unconscious bias that creeps into determinations of salary and promotion in our workplaces.

Solving The Unconscious Bias Problem

The only way to completely eliminate unconscious bias is to be unaware of a person's gender. While this is difficult in most occupations, it worked fabulously for orchestra auditions. When orchestra auditions became blind to gender (the auditioning musician played from behind a curtain, so as not to reveal his or her gender), a woman's chances of making through the final round of auditions increased by 33 percent. Unfortunately, most organizations want to have the opportunity to chat with prospective candidates, and thus cannot be blind to gender.

Many organizations have adopted unconscious bias training programs in order to alleviate gender bias. The idea is to teach their employees about how this bias seeps into their decision-making. While a noble goal, there are significant problems with this strategy. First, unconscious behavior is incredibly hard to change, because it is, indeed, unconscious. Second, there is evidence that raising awareness of the prevalence of stereotyping can actually increase the use of stereotypes. In other words, the training could backfire and actually make things worse. Fortunately, there are other ways to keep unconscious bias in check.

Because people don’t realize they have unconscious bias, outside systems of checks and balances must be in place to keep tabs on pay and promotion. Iceland (ranked first in the world in gender equality) instituted a policy this January where organizations with more than 25 employees must ensure that men and women are being paid the same for the same jobs, and then they must report their findings to the government for certification. If an organization is unconsciously providing more pay raises to men, it will show up on their report. Unfortunately, the Trump administration halted an Obama-era rule that would have forced private employers in this country to reveal salary information to the EEOC. These types of rules create accountability, and would have been a big step in identifying unconscious bias and reducing the gender pay gap.

Fortunately, organizations do not have to wait for government reform. They can assess their own pay structures (although it’s best to have an outsider do it) to check for unconscious bias in their pay and promotion structures. Only these checks and balances can eliminate the unconscious bias that keeps women from earning the same pay as their male counterparts.

Kim Elsesser is the author of Sex and the Office: Women, Men and the Sex Partition that's Dividing the Workplace.